Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

“I’ve Got Nothing To Hide” And Other Misunderstandings Of Privacy
Daniel J. Solove
The George Washington University law School.
Article link: “I’ve Got Nothing To Hide”, Solove

I’ve been following many of the bibliography trails in articles/books that I have been reading. One article led me to Mr. Daniel Solove, currently a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. I read the first 1/2 of his book, “The Digital person: Technology and Privacy in the Digital Age” and that led me to the “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” Article.

Mr. Solove states that Privacy Laws for the internet need to catch up with the times. They need a major structural and ideological overhaul. He also breaks down many of the flaws of he most popular argument that supports the invasion of privacy by companies/governments that collect, disseminate, and even sell the information collected about people. That argument states that ‘if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear’ regarding data-mining and ‘dataveillance’.

“A society without privacy protection would be suffocating, and it might not be a place in which most want to live.” p. 15

He also objectively redefines the term ‘privacy’ and states that privacy is not necessarily about hiding bad things. Further, privacy is an innate human characteristic that needs to be protected, especially in a ‘democratic’ society.

He pays special attention to what he terms as “the problem of secondary use”, concerning the data mining. By secondary use he is referring to companies that collect data about their customers for one purpose, then using that data for ‘other’ purposes without that customers consent.

One way to curb this misuse of data-mining is judiciary oversight; such as warrants and reporting back findings to a court of law. This oversight is intended to curb abuses and misuses of surveillance and data mining.
————————————————————-

One of my friends told me that Mr. Solove was his professor of law at Seton Hall, a few years back. He was his favorite professor. This connection might allow me to interview Mr. Solove about my topic relating to data-veillance and data mining. I could def. include this interview in my thesis. (food for thought)

I’ve been following the bibliography trail of all the readings that I encounter in my research for the thesis project. That trail has led to very interesting books and journal entries.

Right now, one of those trails led to this web site dedicated to Roger Clark. Further, this journal entry (Surveillance Screens and Screening in Code 46) in Journal of media Arts Culture led me to Mr. Clark’s website.

Roger Clark has been researching and writing about information privacy and data surveillance for the past 30 years. The term ‘dataveillance’ pops up every where in his writings. I am thinking that his research will be a major source in this paper. I am not sure if he coined the phrase ‘dataveillance’ or not but he does offer original and objective insight into the topic. Will post more after I get a better grasp of his perspective concerning ‘dataveillance’, technology, and privacy.

Solove, D. (2006) The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age, New York: New York University Press

Gandy, O. (2006) “Data Mining, Surveillance, and Discrimination” in The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, eds. Haggerty, K. and Ericson R., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 363-84.

Clarke, R. (1988) “Information technology and dataveillance” in Communications of the ACM, 31(5), May 1988: 498-512. Cited in Lyon 2001, p.143